It was a small expedition led by two willful young ladies. The destination? The rocky paths and steep inclines of the petroglyph-laden Boca Negra Canyon. The exigence? To experience the convergence of history and nature and to bask in the beauty of it all. The reality? Allergies, urban sprawl, and a 4 year old who (in)conveniently had to pee half-way up the embankment.

As I sit here thinking about mine and Laurel’s trip today I can say that it was another chance for me to get out of my house and experience some more of amazing New Mexico. The Petroglyph National Monument is beautiful, well-kept, and has a rich history that is accessible and hands on. It saddened me, though, that I could not lose myself in the drawings or the cold sunshine because of the noise pollution and the neighborhood eyesore that was constantly in my peripheral. I definitely had a Hot, Flat, and Crowded moment as I stood gazing at a huge lava rock with a gorgeous spiral drawing on it and was snapped back into reality by the honking of a car horn and the subsequent slamming of someone’s front door. Seriously, the houses could not have been any closer.

I realize that the petroglyphs are protected and that the human developments will probably never reach beyond their present position, I just wonder what the reasoning was behind allowing sprawl to reach that closely to such a sacred and honored space. I wonder if the developers or city planners were trying to be ironic. Maybe they had some foresight into the lesson that people such as myself would find in the juxtaposition of a Native American landmark and a boxhouse neighborhood. Maybe they had some inkling that Hot, Flat, and Crowded needed some prime-o examples for Friedman’s words to really crystallize in the brains of humanity and thus be compelled to take some action. Or maybe these developers and city planners are so greedy, so short-sighted, and so ignorant that they did not care that that neighborhood really puts a damper on the magic of the petroglyphs.

Hmmm.